Rise of the Rulelords: Squamous

Last time on the Good, the Bad, and the Aquatic, we found ourselves squaring off against the aquatic nightmare demon horse granted to the Oathbreaker Paladin by his dark god Dagon. None of us knew that, of course. When the horse came around the corner, we naturally assumed it was more devils due to the nature of Devilham Manor. The monk shot his kamehamehas at it, and the horse whinnied away into the night. The paladin was pissed, but I mean, what did he expect, really? He didn’t tell us, and is denying everything. He’s lucky I didn’t go first. That horse would have been nuked. So if he doesn’t like it, he can lick my dwarven balls.

Before we continued, we finished up business at Devilham Manor. The cenobite box was still radiating evil, and it turns out there was like a mossy hellspawn spreading rot everywhere stuck to the wall. Super gross, that’s for sure. I had it on good spiritual authority that we had to burn the figure with the light of heaven. Being the giant sun cannon I am, I had already used my channeled divinities. We spent a short rest to recuperate, and give me time to pray to mighty Sarenrae. As soon as that was done, the rays of the sun annihilated the rot. Hooray!

Task completed, we headed back to Sand Point before we went to Magnamar to follow up on the blackmailing information, and to inspect the Foxglove town home. The major issue with coming in late to an adventure path is you have no frame of reference when it comes to the NPC history. I don’t really have an idea who the people are, what history people have with them, and no shared events to really hook me in. Of course, an adventure path is supposed to be tailored for a group start to finish, so it’s hardly a surprise. Still, I’m glad we are headed to a different city so I can hopefully get integrated in the new leg of our journey from the start.

On the way back, the monstrous horse made a reappearance. It was an awkward encounter, as the paladin continued to assure us he didn’t remember his past, and perhaps it was from his past, and so on. The luxurious Lance Granite was not so easily swayed, but for now there is an uneasy truce. Lance is a bit naive, but it only takes so many atrocities before he doesn’t accept things at face value.

After some dissemination of information in Sand Point, we celebrated a victory and planned to move onward. The paladin was creepy by wearing a human flesh mask and pretending to be at a bar for laughs. Wearing a human flesh mask is a sure sign someone is probably sketchy. Of course, all of the illusion masks in EQ were whatever skin masks. I’m pretty sure Pathfinder picked it up from there. There was some discussion of why the merchant wasn’t yet back from selling previously gathered items. It was dismissed, and we left for Magnamar.

Along the way, we discovered signs of a struggle, and spotted a corpse in the woods. It was the assistant of the merchant who was selling the group’s stuff. There were tracks that led into the woods. We followed the path into the woods and spotted the dead deceased corpse of the merchant’s dead body! Dun DUN DUUUUUUN. Before we were able to inspect the body, we were beset by giant snakes, smaller snakes, flying fart squids, some bush dudes, and even more snakes. Seriously, so many snakes. It was a rolling encounter, so more and more creatures got added to the fight as it went along. The difficulty was fairly high, and there were some good points of danger as people were grappled into the water and began to drown. However, after expending most of our resources, we eventual eked out a victory.